


Mending Hearts

by desperationandgin



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, doing what the writers won't, filling in the blanks, post-Faith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 11:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20339443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desperationandgin/pseuds/desperationandgin
Summary: Jamie and Claire return to Lallybroch and finally discuss what happened in France.





	Mending Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Today is Fanfiction Authors Appreciation Day and I didn't know how else to say thanks for even making me an author. Without _readers_ there'd be no point to this. You all who take the time to read, comment, and leave kudos mean everything to me <3
> 
> One final note: this is strictly based on show canon; I know information was presented to Jamie while in the Bastille in the book, but the show didn't even give us that, so I tried to toss my hat into the ring for what might have happened at Lallybroch.
> 
> Happy reading!

I couldn’t help my blinding jealousy at the new life I held cradled in my arms. Evey common and bitter refrain played across my mind like a recording I couldn’t shut off.

_It isn’t fair._

_I should have a newborn._

_This should be my daughter in my arms._

_My daughter lies buried in France, and each child here is a reminder of the failure to bring my own into the world properly._

I had to excuse myself from the living room, where all had gathered after supper to sit and have a dram while reading aloud from the Bible. (_A tradition started by Ellen herself, as a way to get through the most boring part of being God-fearing._) When Jamie half-rose as I stood, I strategically handed the content and sleeping babe in my arms to my husband, then moved out of the room quickly, climbing the stairs to our own private space.

By the time Jamie arrived behind me, I’d removed everything down to my shift, let down my hair, and crawled into bed. I lay tightly curled on my side, back to the door, and prayed he wouldn’t attempt to speak with me.

I should have known better.

First, he sat by the fire, unbuckling his boots and then removing his stockings. For a dozen and a half heartbeats, he stayed sitting, then stood and removed his vest, then his kilt. It was five heartbeats more before I heard him move to my side of the bed. My eyes opened as he kneeled, and while I was expecting a certain amount of gentleness in his expression (_and wasn’t disappointed_), I didn’t expect the way barely checked tears made the rim of his eyes red.

“Are ye alright, _mo nighean donn_?”

I wet my lips — slightly chapped from sitting in the sun too long and not hydrating properly — and went with the truth this time.

“No, I’m not.”

I couldn’t tell if he looked grateful for my honesty or utterly destroyed by it.

“I ken, _mo chridhe_. I ken ye hurt and there’s no’ a way to fix it.”

My own tears began to blur my vision. “No. There isn’t.” I wet my lips once again as a tear rolled down my cheek. “Our daughter should be here, with us.”

Jamie’s head bowed, and he nodded while looking down at the ground. “Aye. Aye, I wish she were buried here as well. At home.”

I pushed myself upright, staring at him. “I meant _alive_. Our daughter should be here, in my arms, alive and whole.”

He paled as he realized his mistake. “Forgive me, Sassenach, I didna mean—”

“It’s fine,” I whispered, swallowing heavily and finally breaking my intense stare. “I know that isn’t what you meant.”

Tentatively, he stood and relocated himself to the bed, sitting beside me. “I wish for her to be here every day, Claire. Do ye not know that?”

My heart felt as though it’d grown claws and was attempting to dig its way out of my chest. “Of course I know, Jamie.”

“And do ye ken that I would give anythin’ to change it, to keep her—”

I cut him off this time. “I _know_.”

“Then why won’t ye speak of her wi’ me?”

His question hung in the air like an over-inflated balloon.

“You’re so angry, Sassenach. But ye willna talk to me.”

Those words were the arrow.

“I’m not _angry_, I’m…” I sputtered for the words, my frustration at being ineloquent at an inopportune moment making it all the worse. “I would have gladly burned to death from the fever!” When my words came, they were louder than I meant for them to be, and then they continued to spill. “I was _alone_, Jamie. Our daughter was born already gone, and I was alone. I was dying, terrified, without you.” I’d had Mother Hildegard, the other Sisters, but they weren’t who I’d wanted. “I was given Last Rites, for Christ’s sake, Jamie, and I didn’t—” I broke off, forcing my next words out, even though they felt as though they burned on the way up. “At the very least, I would have been with our daughter again.”

There it was, then. I’d wanted to die and just admitted it to my husband. When I finally found the courage to look at him, he was pale as a sheet, eyes blown wide, and the expression was enough that it brought me back down from an emotional high.

“Jamie?”

He swallowed, eyes focusing a bit before blinking and looking at me. “I didna ken,” he weakly rasped.

“You didn’t know _what_?”

As soon as the question left my mouth, I realized. He hadn’t known I’d nearly died. He’d known, or at least realized the miscarriage happened, easily enough. But prior to going to the King, prior to realizing I was to blame, after all, I hadn’t bothered to write him, and then he was simply home again and I’d never spoken of it. I’d told him of his daughter when he’d asked, but I hadn’t told him anything about my own situation. As I came to the realization and he tried to process the information, silence hung heavily between us.

“What was—what happened to ye?”

I sighed heavily, not in exasperation, but because I knew what this would do to his heart. Another burden to carry, another failure in his own eyes. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Jamie. I’m here. I didn’t die.” 

“It matters to _me_. I need to know, Claire. All of it.”

So I told him. Everything, with the omission of Raymond — only because I still wasn’t sure if he’d truly been there or if I’d hallucinated him; after our encounter in front of the King, I hadn’t seen him again. But everything else, from the way Magnus had held my head in his lap until I passed out in the carriage, to the way Fergus had brushed my hair and slept beside me each night, I told Jamie. By the time I finished, I wasn’t sure he was breathing for how still he was. I didn’t move either, my eyes focused on a point across the room.

Finally, his hand moved to cover mine, and I realized he was shaking. Turning my head to look, the sight of him made my mouth open and close, chin trembling. He was crying, rivers running down his cheeks, and looked the same as he had in the aftermath of the nightmares that used to gut him. He was quiet for several moments before clearing his throat.

“You were alone the day a priest anointed ye to God. I wasna there,” he began, voice breaking as he struggled to continue. “But until a day comes when keeping ye would only bring harm to ye, I swear, I will never let ye be alone again. Where I go, you will go, Sassenach. And where ye need me, ye—” He paused, needing, it seemed, to press a kiss to my knuckles, over my silver ring. “I will never give ye cause to feel alone again.”

There was no need for either of us to apologize for anything beyond this. We’d moved on from whose fault the loss of Faith was and settled on _it likely would have happened anyway; miscarriages mean something was wrong_. There had to be a _reason_. Otherwise, it was all God’s fault, and I couldn’t be the one to deliver such a blow to Jamie’s religious beliefs.

Scooting over to make room for him, I carefully laid on my side and Jamie took the invitation to lie beside me. Settling against his chest, I let out a quiet breath and listened to the slow beating of his strong, though battered heart. How much would my husband have to lose in his life?

“I feel as though I’ve let you down.” The whispered confession rose from nowhere, unbidden, a secret that had manifested in my heart weeks ago.

“Ye what, Sassenach?” His voice had a pinched quality to it, as though he were trying to keep his tone in check.

“It’s my body that’s supposed to shield and protect our children until they’re born. I always knew _something_ was wrong with me, Jamie. For the number of times we—I should have been pregnant long before Faith. And now, if I do again, what if—”

He stopped me by sitting up so quickly my head dropped to the mattress, then pulled me up so he could hold my face in his hands.

“Ye just told me that ye nearly _died_ and ye think the only thing that matters to me is whether or not ye can have another bairn?”

I looked at him, able to feel the familiar beginnings of a lump in the back of my throat. My voice grew hoarse with it as I spoke. “_You said_ by the grace of God we might have another. We might not, Jamie. And if we do, I can’t stand the idea of going through this all again.”

“_Mo chridhe_. _Mo chridhe_, no. I would never wish to have a bairn over having _you_. When I saw ye fall, and then I saw the blood, I didna ken if— I knew something bad was happening. It was _all_ I knew. And so, I sat, no’ knowing if ye were alive or if ye’d died.” He pressed a hard kiss to my forehead. “I want a child, Sassenach, but _want_ and _need_ are two verra different things. I need ye to live, do ye understand that? Wi’ out the other half of my heart, I couldna live.”

I wanted desperately to be able to give it to him, all of it.

“You wouldn’t resent me? If I never could give you another?” _A living one, this time._

“Ye’ve given me all ye’ll ever need to, Claire, when ye chose me at the stones.”

I looked at him with a broken heart that finally began wanting to piece itself together again.

“I asked you once to come and find me.” I swallowed, searching his eyes with my own. “Will you still?”

Leaning forward until his forehead touched mine, Jamie pressed a kiss to my lips before replying. “I would crawl on my hands and knees through Hell itself to find ye, _mo nighean donn._”

When he kissed me, I believed him.


End file.
